


Equal Opposite Reaction

by nanabongie



Series: Can Go Wrong, Did Go Wrong [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bart Allen is the Flash, Dimension Travel, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Batman, Sort Of, Tim Drake Is Joker, the jla are confused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27105079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanabongie/pseuds/nanabongie
Summary: The members of the Justice League fall into a universe where Jason Todd is Batman. Seeing Bruce resurfaces old feelings he thought he had left behind, maybe he can get the closure he needs despite the fact that this Bruce is not his father.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Justice League & Jason Todd, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Can Go Wrong, Did Go Wrong [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967410
Comments: 18
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Angst! Angst! More angst!
> 
> The JLA is sort of canon JLA but also the Justice League from the newest animation movies? If that makes sense, and the JLA of Jason’s universe is the League from the Murphy’s Law world where Jason becomes Batman.
> 
> This fic takes place nine years after Jason becomes Batman.

One moment they were fighting a weird army of alien robots and the next they were in a place that looked like the Batcave.

Barry had been in this situation too many times to even be shocked anymore, but the migraines from jumping through time or space never got any better.

He winced as he rubbed at his temple, only to be knocked to the ground by an unseen force.

“Robin! What the hell did I tell you about punching without knowing who you’re punching!”

“Come on Batman, they literally just poofed into the Batcave, don’t tell me that isn’t sus.”

“Hel don’t you see, that’s the Flash, you just punched the Flash!”

Barry bit back a groan as he rose to his feet. He was getting far too old for this.

Everyone else seemed relatively unharmed, but they seemed to be watching the interaction between the three unrecognized voices with bemusement.

“Sorry Mr uh Flash, but to be fair if you wanted to dodge that punch you could have,” a girl said unapologetically. Barry got a good look at his assailant, she was wearing the traditional Robin colours sans domino, and had her black hair tied up in a tight ponytail.

“Apology accepted?” Barry said tentatively.

“See, happy now Batman?” The girl Robin asked with a glare aimed behind Barry.

“Not that this isn’t nice and all, but where the hell are we?” Oliver asked. Barry hadn’t expected Green Arrow of all people to gain his wits first but then again he wasn’t always the best judge of character when it came to the archer.

“Well Oliver Queen, welcome to Earth 36,” a robotic sounding voice said. Barry turned to see someone dressed in Batman gear, similar to Bruce’s albeit a bit darker, the main difference was that instead the cowl Bruce donned this Batman had a helmet. Next to him was a girl dressed in an almost identical batsuit to Bruce’s, except that the top of the cowl was cut off to show off her ginger hair.

“Well that’s just great,” Hal muttered.

_Yeah, fan-fucking-tastic_ ,  Barry thought.

—

“I’ve called a few of my associates who can help us try and locate your world so we can send you back, your frequencies are unlike any of the ones we’ve seen and you’re not only from another earth but from the past, so it might take a little longer than I had initially hoped,” this earth’s Batman said, helmet still covering his head.

He had left them to supposedly call in a few people he knew and had left Robin and who Barry learned was Batgirl, in charge of them.

“What’s your general estimate then?” Bruce asked gruffly. Barry had learned to read the man over the years and he could tell that he was feeling slightly out of his element.

Sure it was the Batcave but it looked so different, the technology was more advanced than anything they had in their time and the cave itself looked more modern.

“A week and a half at most, four days minimum. Don’t worry you won’t have to sleep with the bats old man, I’ll open up the manor as soon as my buddy comes and checks you all out.” It struck Barry as odd the way this Batman talked to Bruce as if he knew him, the fond nickname not escaping his notice, and judging by the slight narrow of Bruce’s lenses it hadn’t escaped his either.

“Thank you for your help, you have been amicable thus far,” Diana said with a grateful smile.

“It’s the nostalgia, it’s weird seeing all of your like this again,” Batman said, his chuckles sounding distorted through the helmet’s modulator.

“So we exist on your earth?” Clark asked, curiosity painting his features.

“Existed,” this Batman corrected, “All of you are dead... or at least kind of dead.”

Well that was comforting.

“Should you be telling us all of this? Since you are from the future and all that?” Arthur asked, a small frown tugging at his lips.

“Alternate universe, besides from what year you guys told me you were from your earth will be fine,” Batman shrugged as he pulled up something on a holographic pad.

“Are you the only one left?” Bruce asked suddenly, well suddenly may not have been the right word, because Barry knew Batman never did something without thinking about it first.

“So you’ve guessed huh old man? Not like I made it hard, and no Babs is still kicking, same with Steph, Duke, Tim, and Cass,” Batman said, turning off his holographic pad to reach behind his helmet and unlatch it.

The formerly dead Robin grinned, his green-blue eyes sparkling with something.

Something wasn’t adding up. Batm-Jason has told them it was 2033, but the man didn’t look a day over nineteen. Something was seriously wrong.

“You became Batman?” Dinah asked incredulously. If Jason took offence my the disbelief in her tone he didn’t show it.

“Yeah, well, someone had to be,” Jason said with a humourless laugh.

“I take it that Bruce and Richard are-“

“Dead? Yeah they are,” Jason interrupted J’onn with a wave of his hand.

“Your comrade recognized Barry as the Flash, so he do exist on this earth?” Diana asked, sympathy showing in her gaze.

“We have a Flash, and a Justice League, our Flash might exist on your earth if the name Bart Allen means anything to you,” Jason said, typing away at something at his gauntlet before projecting a holographic screen large enough for all of them to see.

Barry started at the roster of heroes on the screen. He felt a pit in his stomach at the fact that none of them were there, the fact that something had happened that lead to Bart becoming the Flash. What exactly had happened?

“Here are the main nine members of the league, led by our Wonder Woman, but you might know her as Troia,” Jason said as he pulled up another image.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell happened here?” Hal asked absently, his eyes glued to the White Lantern on the screen. Kyle Rayner.

“You couldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jason said with a wry grin. A beep sounded from his gauntlet and a frown made its way to his face.

“Well looks like our experts are here so try not to break anything,” Jason said before walking away from them and towards an entrance that looked like a zeta tube.

RECOGNIZED: FLASH - A-05

AUTHORIZE CODE: INERTIA 

RECOGNIZED - JOKER - C-01

Barry paled as the zeta said the announced the last name, and his teammates around him tensed, the name sparking their fight reflex.

Once the flash of light had dissipated it left two figures in his wake. The suit Bart wore was different than both his and Wally’s. The red was darker and he had brought back the traditional gold as apposed to Wally’s silver, but the top part of the cowl was cut of to show Bart’s perpetually messy hair.

Behind him was another man, almost as tall as Bart but a lot more thin. Barry recognized the pale skin and the green hair but he also knew that the Joker was not supposed to have the face of Tim Drake.

“Well why didn’t you tell me we were having a family reunion Jayjay?” The Joker said with Tim’s voice and Tim’s face, his eyes were locked on Bruce’s form and an unnatural grin had split across his face.

_ What the hell had happened?  _


	2. Chapter 2

“Just count yourself lucky I let you in here Timberlina, you’re a bad influence on Terry, all he does is cheat whenever we play monopoly now,” Jason said with a grin, throwing his arm around Tim’s shoulder. Tim scowled at the nickname.

“Never play monopoly with him, I still have nightmares from when he made my debt have debt back when we were wee-titans,” Bart complained, pulling his cowl over his head with a frown.

Tim rolled his eyes before looking at the other world’s leaguers, “So that’s them?”

“Yup, and you, Nerd Wonder, are going to fix it along with our lovely friend over here,” Jason said with a too wide grin, steering Tim in the direction of the leaguers. Who were not at all subtle with the way they were gawking at him.

Tim liked the fact that they found him so unsettling, and the grin across his face widened.

“Geez dad, no need to look so down, way to kill a man’s self esteem,” Tim said. It was always an accomplishment to catch Batman off guard.

“Tim?” Bruce asked, as if he didn’t know. As if he couldn’t see what Tim had become. 

“In the flesh, what you don’t like it? Is it the hair? Sadly daddy dearest made me fond of the colour, I think it matches my complexion.” His unnaturally pale complexion that is.

“Stop calling the Joker your dad Tim, it’s weird and-“

“An unhealthy way of coping with trauma, yeah whatever,” Tim said, interrupting Jason, “And you’re one to talk about unhealthy ways of coping.”

Jason glared at him but didn’t say anything, so Tim considered that battle won.

“Oh wow, it’s really the whole gang! That’s so crash,” Bart said as he took a look at the leaguers. He hesitated for a moment before running to give the Flash — and wow is it weird to see Barry donning the red and yellow after so long — a classic Bart hug.

“I’ve waited waaaaay too long to do this Gramps,” Bart said as Barry hesitantly returned the hug.

“This family reunion shit is nice and all but you’re still on the clock Allen, so you and Tim figure out whatever it is we need to do to send them back while I go sort out stuff upstairs,” Jason said, making his way towards the locker rooms of the Batcave.

“What so you trust Tim to be alone in the cave but not me?” Bart asked with a pout as he ran back to Tim’s side.

“Absolutely!” Jason called out. 

Bart rolled his eyes before a serious expression took over his face, “Let’s get to work then huh Oracle.”

Tim frowned at his old moniker but nodded his head, “Yeah yeah, whatever.”

—

Surprisingly no one asked him any questions, much to his dismay. They probably didn’t want to hear the answers to whatever they were going to ask, but Tim loved that joke, the punchline never failed to make him cackle.

“Do you want the good news of the bad news first?” Bart asked, frowning at the results of all their tests.

“I believe the term is ‘give it to us straight’,” J’onn said. Tim couldn’t help but wonder how he said that with a straight face, because that even caused Bruce to quirk his lips slightly. A small part of Tim that sounded treacherously like Robin was glad that he could still read him even after a decade.

“Well we’ve been able to pinpoint what earth you came from but we’ve reached a problem when it comes to timestreams, your earth’s time moves slower than ours in a sense so the equivalent of 2033 here is 2017 over there, which means we’ll have to recalibrate the cosmic treadmill in order to send you guys home,” Bart explained, pulling up all the scientific jargon onto the main monitor so everyone could see.

“So what’s our time-frame?” Hal asked, not even bothering to look at the numbers on the screen.

“We’re guessing a week, Barry has to become attuned to this earth’s frequency before he can run to bring you guys home and there’s a unknown anomaly that’s radiating off of all of you that we’ll have to test out at STAR labs,” Tim added.

_ A week with Batsy! How fun, maybe we can bring out a few of our old trick Junior, keep the family business alive!  _

Tim scowled as he buried the voice of Joker — or was it JJ? He could never tell — deep into the recesses of his mind, definitely not the time.

“So what will we do while we’re waiting for you guys to figure out a way to send us home?” Dinah asked, concern painting her face.

“I’m guessing that Jason went up to sort out rooms so you can stay in the manor for a night, but we’ll figure something out tomorrow,” Bart said, an easygoing smile making its way to his face.

Tim saved the file him and Bart had been working on to the computer before shooting his friend — old friend? Best friend? — a wide grin, “Well thats enough Good Samaritan bullshit for me, being nice makes me antsy, also Bart tell Jason the next time he texts me about ‘solving multiverse tomfoolery’ I’m going to shoot him.”

Bart laughed, never taking any of Tim’s threats seriously.

_ They’re laughing at you Junior, not with you. That’s not funny, that’s why you need to beat them to the punchline! _

“Will do Tim, but you’ll need to get in line, Mia said that she was going to shoot Jason in the ass next time he went to the Watchtower,” Bart told him with a grin.

Tim rolled his eyes, if he had a dollar for the amount of times Mia had shot Jason, well he’d have five dollars but it was still weird when he thought about it.

“I have to say it was nice seeing you all again, a regular dynamic... well not duo, what’s the word for nine?”

“Nonet,” Bart answered immediately as he punched in the override code for the zeta beam.

“Well dynamic nonet just doesn’t have the same ring to it, where’s the alliteration?” Tim asked with a huff.

“Us heroes and our alliterations,” Bart said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Technically I’m an anti-villain according to Wikipedia,” Tim corrected him.

Bart laughed, “Sure you are Tim, see you around.”

Tim let out a sigh he didn’t know he had been holding in when a bright light flashed and he arrived at a barren Amusement Mile.

A laugh slipped past his lips, as crazed as it always had been for the past almost twenty years. He leaned against an old rickety ride as his laughter mixed with sobs.

He shook his head and wiped his tears with the handkerchief in his pocket, trying to reign in his laughing fit before itbecame something uncontrollable.

“Well that wasn’t funny,” Tim said when his breathing had calmed a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim’s Joker is like a Harley Quinn and Riddle-esque Joker as opposed to our classic asshole Joker. He toes the line of villain and hero more often than not but he’s still pretty close with some of them.


	3. Chapter 3

“Are they still down there?” Helena asked as she followed him through the halls of the manor, not offering to carry the many blankets that were bundled in Jason’s arms. The little brat.

“Yeah I left them down there with Tim and Bart, they’ll figure out a way to send them home faster than I can,” Jason told her, deciding to throw three of the blankets in her face.

Helena scowled as she picked them up, but continued to carry them, “Uncle Tim is here? If I help you set up the guest rooms fast enough can I go say hi?”

‘Technically Tim is your brother,’ was what Jason wanted to say. But somewhere along the line Helena had come to view him as a father and Jason would be lying if he said he didn’t view her as his daughter. 

“Maybe, but they must be pretty busy right now kid, but I’ll make sure to invite Tim over next week,” Jason told her as he made his way to the next room he had to set up.

“Fine,” Helena said with a huff before her eyes lit up again, “That Batman down there, is he really you know who?” 

“You can say his name Lena, he’s not Voldemort.”

“Who?”

“Uncultured brat.”

“No you’re just old,” Helena teased, depositing the blankets on an armchair and then picking up a duster to clean up the room.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to respect your elders?” Jason said with a small smile. His conversations with Helena always made him nostalgic of the days he had when he was Robin and everything was still slightly okay.

“No, but mom told me how to steal from them,” Helena said proudly as she dusted the dresser.

“Atta girl,” Jason said, holding out his hand for a high five which Helena readily returned.

“Wait until I tell Doc Brown that you’re encouraging Helena to steal,” Carrie said from the doorway, she had changed out of her Batgirl suit to a matching set of pajamas and had removed her contacts and now wore her green tinted glasses.

“Stephanie would be just as proud of Helena as I am,” Jason said with a humorous glint in his eye, then he asked, “Have you checked on Terry?”

Carrie shook her head fondly before moving closer to them, “Yeah, he’s fast asleep. Anything I can help with?”

“Sure, take a few blankets and set up two other bedrooms, there’s five guest rooms that are cleaned regularly and I’ve already set up this one and another, Helena will finish dusting all of them while I go check on Matt,” Jason said, handing the pile of clean blankets to her.

“Let the kids do all the work while you go check on the sleeping baby, typical,” Helena grumbled with a roll of her eyes but there was no heat to her words.

Jason ruffled her hair fondly and then pulled Carrie into a brief side hug.

“Don’t cause a mess while I’m gone,” Jason told them before making his way out of the room.

He walked down a few hallways of the manor before stopping at his own room. He pushed the the door open slowly, knowing that it whined on its hinges and not wanting to wake Matt up if he was still asleep.

It was all for naught because as soon as he stepped over Matt’s crib the baby opened his eyes brown blearily. 

“Hey buddy, miss me?” Jason asked softly, he still couldn’t begin to wrap himself around the emotions that swirled up in his chest when Matt so much as looked at him.

Matt let out a small yawn, momentarily exposing his few tiny teeth, before reaching up with grabby hands.

“That’s what I thought kiddo,” Jason said with a small smile as he picked up the impossibly small child.

Matt babbled sleepily as he let his arms fall across Jason’s shoulders and his head rest on them.

“Want to go say hi to grandpa? Or technically dad who’s from another universe? Kind of confusing right? Weird how I’m raising three of Bruce’s biological kids,” Jason said with a sad chuckle, walking out of his room.

It had only been a little less than a year since the Justice League had investigated an abandoned Cadmus facility and had found PROJECT: GOTHAM. Partial clones of Batman and another genetic ‘donor’ made to replace the Bat once he died, the project had been abandoned after Cadmus had fallen, but they had found to subjects still suspended in pods that still had life functions activated. One aged to be biologically seven and the other aged to be biologically two months.

Jason hadn’t thought twice about taking them in and Terry and Matt soon became bright fixtures of the manor.

He turned the hands of the old grandfather clock and waited for it to slide, then he made his way down the steps of the cave, careful not to disturb Matt too much. He usually wouldn’t take the baby down with him unless he had to but Carrie and Helena were busy cleaning up and Terry was fast asleep.

As soon as Matt had learned to crawl he had put a childlock on everything in the cave and had drilled into all the other kids the importance of returning batarangs and other weapons to their rightful spots.

When the others in the cave came into view Jason wasn’t surprised to see that Tim had left, even though he wished he had stayed, but the fact that Tim had come in the first place spoke bounds about how far their relationship had come.

He just wished it hadn’t taken Damian dying for it to happen.

“So Flash, what’s the verdict?” Jason asked as he approached the group of alternate heroes and his teammate.

“A week estimate for us to be able to bring them back home,” Bart said, but his eyes were fixed on Matt. Jason knew he was going to ask to hold him so he simply rolled his eyes and gently deposited Matt into the speedster’s arms.

“I’ll call a meeting tomorrow at the manor so we can figure out where you guys will stay for the time being,” Jason told the alternate Justice League, then he turned to Bart, “tell Mia about it for me okay? I think she blocked my number again.”

“Yeah, sure can do oh fearless leader,” Bart said with that dopey grin he got whenever he was around babies.

“That’s Donna, now give me my kid back and get out of here,” Jason told him. Bart laughed before handing Matt back to him and then zipping away to the zeta tubes.

“He’s very beautiful,” Diana commented, looking at Matt — who was now stirring restlessly in Jason’s arms, curse Bart and his contagious enthusiasm — with a fond expression.

“Thank my Bruce for that I guess,” Jason said with a small smile.

Dinah frowned, but her eyes were fond as she looked at Matt, “How long has this earth’s Ba-Bruce Wayne been dead?”

“Thirteen years,” Jason answered, wincing as Matt used his demonic claws to pinch at his ears.

“I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but something isn’t adding up here,” Arthur said as he took in Matt’s age.

“Does your earth have Kon? Matt is like him except he’s a partial clone of Batman,” Jason explained.

“Cadmus?” Bruce asked, his cowl had been pulled down sometime when Bart and Tim had been conducting their tests. but his face was still as stony as ever.

“Yeah, Amanda Waller was impressed by you or something so her go to way of expressing that was cloning you, who would have figured,” Jason said with an exasperated sigh. Matt babbled something unintelligibly as he reached for Jason’s eyes. Jason held him further away from his body.

“You said partial, who does the other DNA belong to?” Clark asked. Jason wondered if he had been as unwelcoming as this earth’s Clark Kent to his clone.

“Still don’t know, nothing showed up when I ran bloodwork or went through Cadmus’ systems, best I could get was that he has East Asian heritage,” Jason said, returning the glare Matt sent him with a mock one of his own, he turned to look back at the other heroes, “Enough about that though, since I’m a semi-hospitable person I’ll let you crash in the manor for now, we’ll think of something better tomorrow. The locker room has civvies suited for your counterparts that should fit except for uh Green Arrows since our Green Arrow has one more X chromosome over here.”

Hal let out a laugh at that, “Wait did Speedy become Green Arrow here?”

“Depends on which Speedy but I’m guessing you’re talking about Mia, and yeah she did,” Jason said as he led them towards the other side of the cave.

“And what about Connor? If he exists on this world,” Jason could tell Oliver was hesitant to ask. Jason didn’t really want to give the answer either.

“Dead, assassinated ten years ago at a charity function by Deathstroke,” Jason said, Connor’s death was one of the things that brought back the dulled angry green that still ran through his veins, even after all the time that had past and the memory of the disappointment in Dick’s face he couldn’t bring himself to regret putting a sword through Grant’s chest for what he’d done. 

“Christ, is Slade still...” Hal didn’t have to finish his question, the implications were clear to Jason.

“Slade hasn’t been Deathstroke since I was Robin, his son killed him and then took his moniker,” Jason said. Matt let out a small yawn and the anger Jason was feeling dissipated, “I’m sure you all have a lot of questions still and I’d be happy to answer them but I’ve gotta get the kid back to sleep and no offence but you all smell like sh-,” he glanced at the young and impressionable child in his arms, “Really bad.”

Dinah let out a snort at his obvious change of words and Jason couldn’t stop the sheepish smile that came to his face.

“Change first, questions later, got it,” Barry said, and then he was gone in a split second.

The rest of the heroes followed the speedster albeit at a slower pace, as Jason walked away from them he didn’t miss the way Bruce’s eyes lingered on him.

The green flared again at the thought but he fought to suppress it.

This was way above his pay grade.

“What do you say Matty? Do you think I deserve a beer after tonight?” Jason asked as he made his way back up to the manor. The child’s eyes were steadily becoming more and more bleary. 

Matt turned to glare him at him as if it was Jason’s fault that he was getting tired again before reaching up and smacking Jason weakly on the cheek.

“Yeah, I thought so too.”


	4. Chapter 4

In the end Jason let Carrie show the alternate leaguers to the rooms that had been prepared for them. He told himself that it was because he had to wrangle Matt into bed and alert the other members of the Justice League but deep down he knew it was because he wasn’t ready to face the man who had the face of his father again.

Dick from another universe would’ve been easy, welcome even. Damian from another universe would’ve been a soothing balm over the festering wound the death of Damian had left on his entire being, but Bruce? Jason didn’t know what to do with Bruce.

He had abandoned his plan to confront Bruce about why he hadn’t killed the Joker after Jason had died when he was the League of Assassins, after all Tim had already done the job, as much as Jason wished he hadn’t had to.

He had suppressed the anger after he had changed his course from going back to Gotham to ruin Batman to going back to save him.

And then before he could ever acknowledge the ginormous elephant that occupied the room whenever he and Bruce were in the same vicinity of each other he had to go and die. 

_Fucking asshole_ ,  Jason thought,  _would rather get incinerated by omega beams than talk to his goddamn son._

A sigh escaped from his lips as he lay Matt down in his crib once more. Somehow he knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

—

Jason proved himself right, because four hours later at the break of dawn he was still awake.

Jason had spent the night cleaning up anything he could find, from putting away Terry’s toys that were in the main sitting room to preparing the large dining hall for breakfast. He wasn’t one to let a little fatigue stop him from being productive.

Just as Jason had thought Conner was the first to arrive, just as the sun decided to show its visage in Gotham for once in the early morning a knock sounded from the manor’s front door.

“Don’t you have a job?” Jason asked when he let Conner into the house.

“Why is that the first thing you say whenever you see me?” Kon asked with his shark-like Luthor grin, or maybe it was his lawyer grin, not that there was much of a difference.

“Because your life worries me,” Jason said as they walked towards the main kitchen.

“Aw shucks, well it’s nice to know you care,” Conner said with an impeccable southern accent.

“More like I want you to stop coming here to brainwash my kids,” Jason grumbled, frowning as he took in the slightly too crisp edges of the French toast he had been making before he had gone to answer the door.

“It’s not my fault Carrie likes me more than you,” Kon said, his large frame looking almost comical at the small breakfast bar, “Anyway, what’s this about alternate dimensions?”

“We had a few ‘visitors’ from another world last night, called in Bart and Tim to run some tests and our chances of sending them back home are optimistic but it will take a few days, and I’m not going to house nine heroes from another world,” Jason told him as he began to put food on plates.

“So we’re each going to have to take on hero-sitting duty? I don’t know if they’ll be too happy about us dividing them up dude,” Kon said, using his super speed to snag a piece of bacon off of one of the plates.

“Well tough shit, this isn’t their world so they’ll have to deal with it, but I have kids in here and I run a billion dollar company ,” Jason said with a pointed glare at Kon, “Also don’t say dude, you’re old.”

“Just because you’re somewhat immortal doesn’t erase the fact that you’re older than I am,” Kon said through a mouthful of bacon. 

Jason wrinkled his nose at him, “Do you have to do that?”

“What?” Kon asked and started chewing more obnoxiously because he knew Jason hated it.

Jason took a deep breath before turning away from the man, having kids had made him more patient, having siblings taught him to know how to choose his battles.

Speaking of siblings, Jason had sent both Duke and Cass a message earlier that night, and only Duke had responded. Jason had learned not to expect much when it came to his and Cassandra’s relationship over the past few years but it still hurt.

“So is it really them... not like our them but them right?” Kon asked after a few moments of silence.

“As articulate as always  Superboy ,” Jason snorted, ignoring Kim’s scowl at the name, “And yeah it’s the counterparts of the original Justice League with the addition of the OG Green Arrow and Black Canary.”

“That’s... trippy,” Kon said for lack of a better word. Jason felt the presence of someone else in the room before he heard them, he turned to the doorway to meet eyes with the other earth’s Bruce, Kon’s eyes followed him.

“Yeah definitely trippy,” Kon said, breaking the silence the fell upon them.

“Conner,” Bruce said in greeting. Jason could help but feel sympathetic about the discomfort in Kon’s eyes. 

“Uh hi Mr. Wayne,” Kon cringed after the words left his mouth. The humour of the situation outweighed Jason’s sympathy. Trust the original Batman to leave the almighty Superman bumbling like an idiot.

“You can help yourself to anything unless you want to wait for the others, Conner’s a few hours early so we still have a little bit of time before the rest of the league come,” Jason said, piling up the last of the pancakes on one of the plates. Some would say it was overkill but Jason knew how speedsters ate.

“I’ll wait,” Bruce said, taking a seat at the breakfast bar. Jason wanted to laugh at the image of two grown ass six foot men sitting at the daintiest bar.

The baby monitor beeped a few seconds later and Jason let out a tired sigh, “Kon, can you do the rest of the eggs while I go check on Matt?”

Kon nodded and with that Jason went to walk towards him room, once again ignoring Bruce’s piercing eyes on his back.

When he reached the hallway for his room the excitable voice of Helena made its way to his ears, and when he turned down the hall he saw Helena talking to a very enamoured Hal Jordan and Dinah Lance.

Helena had a way of wrapping people around her fingers, Jason couldn’t blame the two.

“-then I told him to take his bo staff and shove it up his-“

“Helena,” Jason warned before she could finish, he stifled the satisfaction at the slight flinch all three of them gave when they realized he was there.

“You and Spooky, one in the same, I swear,” Hal said with an exasperated sigh.

“Come on dad, I was getting to the best part,” Helena said with a pout that had stopped working on Jason the moment she had tried to steal a cookie off of his plate when she was nine.

“I’m sure you were,” Jason said in a tone so dry it would make Alfred proud, “Take them downstairs and help Uncle Conner fix the last of breakfast, I have to go check on Matt.”

Helena let out a long suffering sigh before grabbing onto Hal’s wrist and dragging him down the hall, “Uncle Conner is really funny, you’ll love him.”

Jason didn’t get to hear Hal’s response, instead he turned to Dinah who had stayed in the hallway.

“Mind if I join you? Matt is very adorable,” Dinah said with a small smile. 

Jason shrugged, “Sure, why not.”

They entered his room in silence, not sharing any words.

Jason could hear Matt’s babbling as soon as they went through the doorway and let out a sigh. The kid was going to age him prematurely and Jason couldn’t even age.

“He’s a talkative one isn’t he?” Dinah said with a fond laugh as Jason reached over the crib to pick up Matt.

Jason wrinkled his nose at the familiar smell that wafted off of Matt, “And a smelly one.”

Matt let out one of those adorable baby laughs of his before letting another one rip.

“Kids, an absolute joy,” Dinah said, chuckling at the pinched expression on Jason’s face.

Jason laid Matt down on the changing table near the crib, “Would you mind passing the diapers over there.”

Dinah did so without saying a word, she stayed silent throughout the entire nasty process of Jason changing Matt’s diaper and throwing the soiled one in the trash.

“How did you guys cope?” Dinah asked suddenly, a sad expression overtaking her features, “When Ollie died on my world I’ll be the first thing to admit I did some things I’m not proud of.”

“At first I didn’t, I just ignored everything and let it pile up, eventually M’gann, you might know her on your earth, she forced me to sit down and talk about it. I was mad at her at the time but I recognize now that it was really unhealthy to be bottling everything up. Nowadays we have mandatory therapy sessions as part of the requirements for league members.” Jason told her as he buttoned up Matt’s dark onesie.

“That’s really mature of you all, we should definitely think of doing something like that, God knows everyone has a truck load of baggage to unload.”

Jason let out a snort at that before pondering over her previous words, “Your Oliver died and he... came back?”

Dinah nodded, “Hal was possessed for a time, the details of his powers during that period are still kind of fuzzy... but he used them to bring Oliver back to life.”

Jason hummed thoughtfully, “Parallax right? Your Hal Jordan broke free of his possession, ours stayed as Parallax for years until he died.”

Dinah’s heart twisted at that, at the unfairness of the world that this Jason lived in, it seems like wherever she went in the multiverse Jason Todd always seemed to be suffering.

“Well enough of that, these conversations are best held over whiskey, it’s still breakfast.” Jason said, attempting to break the tension with humour, Dinah let him, “Do you want to hold Matt?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

—

“Uncle Conner!” Helena exclaimed with a wide grin. Hal tried not to feel too jealous when the kid bounded away from him.

He wasn’t too fond of children, not like Bats or anything, but they were alright. Helena was among the very short list of kids he actually didn’t mind spending time with along with one of his nephews, Wally and Roy (because they were both still tiny Titans in his eyes despite being full grown men now), and surprisingly the new Robin.

Damian was a feisty one but he was a funny kid. Weird, murderous, maybe a bit psychotic, but funny. In a way Helena reminded him of the katana wielding Robin, he didn’t know why though.

“Hey kid, morning Lantern,” the Superman lookalike who was most definitely this earth’s Superboy.

Hal mumbled a greeting back, he didn’t do well with mornings.

Hal took a seat at the breakfast bar next to Spooky, who seemed to still be kind of dead to the world, though his eyes were as calculating as ever.

“Where’s everyone else?” Bruce asked, as if he didn’t have trackers on literally everyone in the league. The bastard.

“Don’t know, I only ran into Dinah so far, think she stayed back to talk to Jason,” Hal replied. He ignored Bruce who let out one of his unreadable grunts and instead started eyeing the copious amounts of food with a watering mouth. 

“Hey Uncle Kon.” Helena’s voice interrupted his pornographic thoughts about the food laid out on the table.

“What does a lawyer get when you give them viagra?” the teen asked with a biting smirk.

Conner, who was scraping eggs off of a pan and onto a plate shot the girl a smile and asked, “What?”

“Taller,” Helena deadpanned. As far as lawyer jokes went Hal had heard worse but the fact that it was coming out of the mouth of a kid who looked sweeter than a button had him snorting.

“I’m not even a lawyer anymore, will you ever let these jokes end?” Conner asked in exasperation.

“Never, as long as I draw breath I live to torment you,” Helena said with a grave voice, but the amusement in her eyes gave away her good humour. The kid was hysterical.

She then turned to Bruce with a thoughtful expression, “Mom used to talk a lot about you.”

“Did she now?” Bruce asked with a raised brow. Like most things Batman did it was pretentious.

“Well not  _you_ you,” Helena said with a huff, “but she’d say that you were real easy to steal from.”

“Well I noticed you nicked my batarang off of me when you walked passed me earlier so I can’t be that easy,” Bruce said, a small twitch to his lips that Hal recognized as the man’s genuine smile.

Helena rolled her eyes but a smile crawled its way across her lips. She removed the sharp projectile from her pocket.

“This thing is so retro, I’m feeling the mode just by looking at it,” Helena said, twirling with the batarang between her fingers in a way that made Hal anxious.

“Any suggestions?” Bruce asked drily, eyeing the way Helena was playing with batarang with displeasure, a way Hal knew the man displayed his own worries.

“No can do B-man number one, don’t want to crash your earth’s mode,” Helena said with a smirk.

In the end it was Conner who stopped her, “Kid you’re going to give me grey hairs if you keep doing that, go set the table in the dining room or something.”

Helena frowned, placing the batarang down in front of Bruce before letting out a sigh and leaving the kitchen.

“She’s my counterparts kid isn’t she?” Bruce asked after a few moments. That definitely explained why Helena reminded Hal of Damian. There was something so very  Bruce  about the both of them.

“Biologically you and Selina are her parents, but this earth’s Bruce died the year she was born and Catwoman died five years ago. Jason’s the only parent she has now,” Conner said, a brief expression of sadness taking over his features before passing.

“Is it morbid that I want to know how my counterpart died on this earth?” Hal asked.

Conner snorted, “Probably,” then a serious expression made its way to his face, “It was parademons... there were so many of them, the sky was practically black with the amount that Darkseid sent to earth, so our Hal suicide bombed himself to take out a large chunk of them. He kind of saved all of our asses that day.”

“Well of all the ways to go...” Hal said contemplatively.

“It’s not the worse,” Conner said with a sad laugh, “Yeah there’s a lot worse ways to die, and a lot of things are worse than death.”

Judging by the frown that made its way to Conner’s face Hal didn’t doubt it.


End file.
